For BJP, the assembly elections will be an opportunity to quickly recoup the halo of invincibility around PM Narendra Modi's head. This is of paramount importance to the party as it wants to nip the Delhi induced talk about ``Modi wave'' having subsided finally and that BJP's prime vote-getter was vulnerable to social alliances cobbled together by parties which otherwise represented a hotchpotch of political ideologies.
Both Nitish Kumar of JD-U, who has accused BJP of trying to engineer a defection in his party, and Lalu Prasad of RJD have welcomed Kejriwal's victory as they see it as having stopped Modi dead in his tracks. The 2 leaders will together hope to do a Kejriwal in Bihar but it is not clear how such a social coalition can be engendered in Bihar's caste cauldron. Perhaps aware of this, they may look to win over AAP, whose appeal is not restricted to any caste or community, to give a semblance of inclusiveness to their alliance. . The AAP victory in Delhi is phenomenal because its leader Arvind Kejriwal could garner support from almost all sections of the society, notably from the poor and lower middle classes. His victory was the result of a grand social alliance rarely seen before, even if it came in an aspirational, relatively tiny city-state.
BJP leaders will, rightly so, point to how Modi himself stitched together a coalition of disparate voters in Parliamentary elections. After Delhi though, Kumar and Prasad would like to believe that his popularity is in a trough after the 2014 high.
Kumar himself will see the elections as a grudge match after the trouble he took to prevent Modi from becoming prime minister ultimately cost him his position as chief minister. Kumar's antipathy for Modi even saw his coming together with his main political foe for decades Prasad.
As JD-U accuses BJP of propping up chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, whose `swabhiman' as he said prevented him from acting as Kumar's rubber stamp, there are already murmurs in RJD against the move to dislodge Manjhi as CM. RJP MP Pappu Yadav has already warned his party chief Prasad that a substantial chunk of Mahadalit votes could go to BJP if Manjhi is removed.
Rampant factionalism in RJD and reservations against Kumar could prevent the 2 parties from arriving at a mutually agreeable seat sharing arrangement. Pappu Yadav and a few other RJD MLAs have spoken about Prasad joining hands with those against forces of social justice, a veiled reference to Kumar's proximity to a few Bhumihar leaders seen as having acted against Prasad's interests in the past.
While OBCs Kurmis and Yadavs along with Muslims and Dalits could form a powerful voting alliance on paper, in reality Prasad and Kumar may find it difficult to translate their tie-up into a coherent fighting unit at the ground level. Modi last year also sent the caste arithmetic for a toss as the numerically significant Yadavs did not consolidate behind RJD and around 40 percent Dalits voted for NDA, a fact that won't be lost on Kumar despite the Delhi results. BJP can be expected to use Manjhi to wean away Mahadalits, a group painstakingly created and nurtured by Kumar.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/followceleb.cms?alias=Nitish Kumar,Narendra Modi,Lalu Prasad,Kejriwal,Bihar
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